Does It Matter?
by GreenLily474
Summary: A year after their final defeat of the Upside Down and the people would would bring it back, El forces Mike and Will to have a talk to repair their friendship. Things are sort of resolved and yet still unresolved. One-shot prequel to How Do We Fix This?


It wasn't supposed to be like that was all Mike could think about as he sat in awkward silence with the two people he cared about the most in the world. They should have been an inseparable trio like Han, Luke and Leia, but things had happened that had driven wedges between himself, Will and El. All Mike wanted was to undo all the damage that had been done, but was that possible? It had to be, it just had to.

Mike watched as Will absently scribbled on his pad and stared off as though he was daydreaming. He recognized that look from when they were kids and had to go to parties of classmates with whom they weren't particularly close. Mike knew that look meant that Will preferred to be somewhere else.

Mike wished he could go back to that night at Lucas's house when they had left Will alone outside by the pool. He had been kidnapped and tortured. There had been events up to that point that led to tension and heated arguments between Mike and Will, but things had really changed that week. El had broken with Mike for good, associating their sleeping together with Will being tortured.

Will had expressed the fear that he wasn't an equal member of the party before and Mike had always insisted that it wasn't the case; but being left alone and being kidnapped had served to solidify that feeling. Though taking on Russians and the forces of the Upside Down yet again had gone a long way toward forgiveness, their friendship hadn't fully recovered. That made Mike even more miserable than El dumping him.

They were all three shaken from their thoughts by a knock at the door of the Byers home. Will seemed grateful for an excuse to get up and leave the room. He returned a few seconds later with Will's cousin Emma and two friends he and El had made since moving to Columbus: Eric and Molly. Mike realized that he hadn't made any new friends since Will and El had moved to Columbus. He was still close to Dustin, Lucas, and Max, but the three of them had moved on as well. Mike was stuck and had been stuck for awhile.

"You to probably want to be alone," said Will. "I'll just go out for a couple hours."

"I think you should be alone with Mike this time," said El as she stood up.

"What?' said Will.

"Will," said El pointedly. "You and Mike need to word things out... Make things better again. C'mon, guys," she said to Emma, Molly, and Eric before Will could object any further.

Will sighed after they left and grabbed a couple cans of soda and handed one to Mike. He wasn't saying a word. Mike decided to talk first.

"El's right, we need to talk," said Mike. Will sipped his soda and stared out the window. Mike saw pain in his friend's eyes. That usually meant that he was holding something in, something that would cause him to cry if he spoke it out loud.

"Will, what is it?" asked Mike. "What's on your mind?"

"Why don't you tell me what's on *your* mind for once, Mike?"

"*My* mind?" asked Mike.

"Yes, your mind, Mike," said Will. "Everyone always expects me to talk about how I'm feeling. Why don't you talk this time?"

"You've gone through a lot," said Mike. "We just want to know that you're okay."

"I'm well aware of what I've been through," said Will as he rolled up his sleeve to reveal an arm full of scars. "But, you know what? I'm doing fine now."

"Yeah, fine with all your new friends. Your *real* friends," Mike added bitterly before he could stop himself.

"Oh, right, I forgot that I didn't have the right to be pissed about anything when I was in the party," said Will.

"Of course you had the right to be pissed... It just stung to hear you say that."

"Yeah, well, it stung to be left alone by my friends yet again- both figuratively and-" Will indicated the scars on his arms. "-literally."

"Are you going to be mad at me forever?" asked Mike.

"No," said Will. "But I'm not going to magically get over it either."

"Look, Will, I just want things to be the way they used to be," said Mike.

"I can understand that," said Will as he thought of the summer of 1985. "But sometimes we just have to move forward and not try to cling to the past."

"That's easy for you to say," said Mike. "You've moved one-you and El have made all these new friends and have this great new life and I'm stuck in Hawkins just miserable and alone."

"Alone?" asked Will. "What about Lucas and Dustin?"

"It's not the same. They have their new things and friends and I have nothing-nothing since you left."

Will's expressions softened. Mike saw that caring look he'd seen on Will's face so many times when they were kids.

"I'm sorry, Mike," said Will. "I don't want you miserable and alone and neither does El."

Mike had an idea. "You could move back to Hawkins!"

"What?"

"I mean, the whole reason you moved away was because of all the stuff with the lab and the Upside Down. That's all over now. You and El aren't in danger anymore there. I'm sure your mom would move back if you and El asked her."

Will sighed. "Mike, we don't want to move back."

"Why not?"

"Even without all the stuff with the Upside Down, we were all treated like freaks in Hawkins. People looked down on my mom. She has a good job here that really lets her use her mind. What is she going to do if we move back to Hawkins? Be a cashier again? Get criticized by everyone for working too much to make ends meet because my father never paid child support?

"What are El and I going to do? Go back to being the freak and the zombie boy and having everyone stare at us everywhere we go?"

"So you wouldn't even consider moving back for me?" asked Mike.

"Why don't you move here?" asked Will.

"Huh?"

"If you're so miserable in Hawkins, why not leave there. None of us were planning on staying after high school anyway."

"I-I," Mike stammered.

"You were just used to things revolving around you," said Will.

"That's not fair."

"It's not fair for you to expect me, El, and my mom to go back to a place where we were miserable just because you're miserable."

Mike bit his lip. He knew that Will was right. Ever since the D&D incident, Will had been more bold with Mike, letting him know if he was being an ass. "It all changed that day," said Mike.

"Yeah, well I was tortured," said Will.

"Not last year," said Mike. "The day of your D&D campaign." Mike saw something that looked like fear and sadness on Will's face.

"I don't care about that anymore," said Will.

"You don't care about the campaign, but you still care about something else," Mike pressed.

"Really?" asked Will. "What's that?"

"I don't know, you tell me. I mean, you never confided anything with me after that day. You preferred hanging out with Lucas."

"Lucas is my friend too. I'm sorry that me hanging out with him hurt your fragile ego," said Will. The insult at the end was the sort of thing he never would have said to Mike before that day.

"You never would have talked to me like that before that fight," said Mike. "_What_ changed?"

Will stared at his soda can. Mike was right: things had changed with that fight. There was a time when he'd want to share with Mike that he was happy and in love. He was secretly terrified that if Mike found out that Will was gay and in a relationship with Eric, he wouldn't want anything to do with him anymore. As angry as Will had felt with Mike, he didn't want to lose his friendship.

"You were disgusted with me," said Will. There was an obvious strain in his voice.

"What?" asked an astonished Mike. "What makes you think that?"

"The look on your face when you said it wasn't your fault I didn't like girls. You were disgusted, Mike. I didn't know whether or not the rumors about me were true at that moment; but I thought that if I was actually gay you wouldn't want anything to do with me anymore."

"D-do you know whether or not you are now?" asked Mike.

"Yeah, I know," said Will.

"And?"

"And what?"

"Are you?"

"Does it matter?" asked Will.

Mike took a deep breath. "Will, are you?"

"Does it matter?" asked Will more slowly through gritted teeth.

"It-well-I mean..."

"So you want me to answer a very personal question and you won't even tell me why it matters," said Will. He drank the rest of his soda, took the can to the sink, rinsed it out, threw it into the recycle bin and stared out the window.

Mike buried his face in his hands. It mattered to him, but not because he'd be disgusted. A small part of him would be happy. He had harbored romantic feelings for Will for a long time. He'd pushed the feelings down out of the fear that his family would reject him or that the town would ridicule him. He had genuinely fallen in love with El and that had helped him suppress his feelings for Will, but she had dumped him for good nearly a year earlier. His feelings for Will had come back in full force even though he still loved El.

Mike of course couldn't tell Will the reason why it mattered if he was gay until he answered the question and Will wasn't going to answer the question until Mike told him why it mattered. It was important that Mike reassure Will that he could never be disgusted with him.

"Will," said Mike as he slowly approached his friend. "You don't have to answer. I just want you to know that I could never be disgusted with you. You're the best friend I've ever had and I'm sorry that I ever made you feel like that."

"Okay," said Will. His voice was barely above a whisper.

"People thought you were gay in Hawkins?"

Mike and Will were both startled as they looked around to see Molly. Emma was elbowing her as El and Eric stood behind them. Molly walked over and took Will's arm.

"I guess you weren't kidding when you said you hadn't told your friends in Hawkins about us."

"You two are dating?" asked Mike.

"Yep," said Molly. Molly, like Will and Eric was gay and didn't want the wrong people finding out. Will pretended to date her while Eric pretended to have an on again-off again relationship with El-who wasn't interested in dating anyone since breaking up with Mike.

"Oh, well congratulations. I'm glad Will is with someone who makes him happy," said Mike as he tried to hide his disappointment and small tinge of jealousy.

"He's with someone who makes him very happy," said Molly as she spared a quick glance at Eric while Mike stared at his shoes.

A/N There are a lot of stories where Will has unrequited feelings for Mike, I decided to write one where Mike is the one with Unrequited feelings. This takes place in 1987 about a year before How Do We Fix This? I'm still working on finishing that one.


End file.
